Strange Rally in Ninth Worth Wait for Angels

Style points are of no concern for the Angels right now, so no one was complaining about the fact they needed a passed ball and wild pitch to score two runs and an assist from two crazed fans to defeat the Kansas City Royals, 4-2, and end a five-game losing streak Friday night.

A Kauffman Stadium crowd of 13,209 saw the Angels erase a 2-1 deficit with three runs in the top of the ninth, all of them scoring after a five-minute delay caused by two shirtless fans who ran onto the field, one of whom refused to go without a fight.

While security officials fought to subdue the man, Royal closer Jeff Montgomery stood around on a frosty, 50-degree evening, and when he finally went back to work, he threw a wild pitch that allowed the tying run to score, gave up an RBI double to Orlando Palmeiro and an RBI single to Randy Velarde.

“I tell you what, that may end up being the biggest win of the season,” said right fielder Tim Salmon, who scored on the wild pitch. “Things have not been going well, and we had to fight back.

“We just battled and battled, we finally got a couple of breaks and took advantage of them, and we got some clutch hits. It’s the type of game you look back on and say, ‘It was a great win.’ ”

Their bats put into a deep freeze by Royal starter Jose Rosado, who gave up four hits and an unearned run in seven innings, the Angels needed Matt Whisenant’s walk of Mo Vaughn and Montgomery’s walk of Salmon to start their ninth-inning rally.

After a nasty first-pitch curve was called for a strike to Troy Glaus, Manager Terry Collins had Glaus bunt, but his sacrifice attempt went right to Montgomery, who threw out pinch-runner Tim Unroe at third.

Garret Anderson grounded into a fielder’s choice, Salmon taking third, and up came Palmeiro, who had replaced hard-hitting left fielder Todd Greene for defensive purposes in the bottom of the eighth.

But before Montgomery could face Palmeiro, he was undermined by his home crowd. Montgomery said he “wasn’t going to make any excuses,” but the Angels thought there might have been a correlation between the lengthy delay and the ensuing wild pitch and RBI hits.

Montgomery’s second pitch to Palmeiro broke in the dirt and got past catcher Chad Kreuter, allowing Salmon to score and Anderson to take second. Anderson, sometimes maligned for a perceived lack of hustle, then raced home on Palmeiro’s slicing hit down the left-field line, scoring just ahead of Kreuter’s tag with a nice hook slide to the inside of the plate.

“Jeff might have been on a nice roll, and then he’s standing there for five minutes with no warmup pitches,” said Angel closer Troy Percival, who threw a 1-2-3 ninth for his second save. “It can throw off your game. Jeff won’t make any excuses, but I know one thing--it doesn’t help you at all.”

For much of the evening, it appeared the Angels would waste an outstanding pitching performance by right-hander Ken Hill, who seems to have found his rhythm after two shaky starts.

Hill gave up two runs on four hits in 7 1/3 innings, striking out seven and walking four. The right-hander did not give up a hit until the fourth and didn’t run into trouble until the sixth, when Carlos Beltran singled and Joe Randa hit a one-out double to left, advancing Beltran to third.

The Angels played their infield back, conceding a run, but Mike Sweeney still found a hole, grounding a two-run single to right field to break a scoreless tie.

But the Angels scored a fluke run in the seventh when Glaus led off with a bloop hit, took second on a wild pitch, third on Anderson’s grounder to second base and home on Kreuter’s passed ball.

That was merely a warmup for the wild and wacky ninth.

“Things went our way, and we’ll take a win any way we can,” Percival said. “Sure, you’d rather beat a team, 12-2, but sometimes it takes something like a passed ball and a wild pitch to spark you. We haven’t caught a lot of breaks lately. We haven’t had a whole lot of karma going our way. But we did tonight.”